


Car Keys

by Louffox



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Car Heist!, Cute, Driving, Escape!, Fluff, Fluff without Plot, Happy, M/M, Mentions Of Edward's Bad Dad, Mentions of homophobia, Romance, Sunshine Eddie To The Rescue, just two men in love, mentions of past lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:00:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28373541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Louffox/pseuds/Louffox
Summary: "You can drive?!""I mean. I am driving now, yeah!"A fluffy piece of Edward and Tjelvar escaping bandits with style.
Relationships: Edward Keystone/Tjelvar Stornsnasson
Comments: 8
Kudos: 31





	Car Keys

Tjelvar could do anything, with Ed's hand in his.

He  _ could _ solve the puzzle.

He  _ could _ find and disarm the door traps.

He  _ could _ dodge the poison darts from the pressure plate trap he missed.

He  _ could _ shoot down the cursed revenant that was swinging at Ed's undefended back, while he swung his morningstar and radiated pure sunbeams, smiting two other revenants.

He  _ could _ pry open the casket without cracking the carvings.

And now, he  _ could _ outrun the blasted cherry picking treasure hunter hacks who'd sat outside the tomb with their thumbs up their- while he- and all that hard work-

He ran harder. Held hands harder. Breathed harder.

"This way," Ed said, sliding down a side alley Tjelvar had overlooked. Though Tjelvar was in excellent shape, Edward Keystone's physical prowess was untouchable. (Except when it was touchable- well. Running and such.) He spoke with his breath, hard but sure, and in two extra strong extra long strides, he'd pulled ahead to lead.

They ran.

To an end, oh  _ no _ \- wait, it was just a junction, and they went left as Tjelvar pulled that way. Run. Run. The would-be thieves were still with them, but gradually falling behind. They were slowing. He held out hope that maybe they could outdistance them- both he and Edward could hold this pace for a while yet. There was a flash of pride so strong it was almost giving him a lump in his throat. He loved his job, he loved his boyfriend, his career and love life were going splendidly, he was strong and healthy and-

A pair of blokes had stepped from the main road into their side street and made eye contact with them.

_ Dammit all. _

He came to a screeching halt, and turned back the way they'd come.

But the men who'd fallen behind were just turning a corner and slowed to a leisurely walk. They didn't need to catch Ed and Tjelvar. They'd already been caught. 

Tjelvar went for his crossbow, letting go of Eddie-

But Eddie hadn't let go of him, and tightened his grip, pulling him to the side. Toward a trio of motorized vehicles, sitting shiny and steel and black in a row of painted lines on the pavement.

Tjelvar tried to duck between them for cover, as Ed was doing- but no, he was pulling on the bar on the side, the handle, and the door swung open.

"In! Get in!" Ed said, and Tjelvar was too baffled to do anything but obey, sliding across the leather bench as Ed bundled him in and pushed him over, jumping in beside him.

"Have you lost your mind?” Tjelvar cried, hunkering down and trying to get his crossbow around in the small car… room. He didn’t know anything about cars, his business was in past, not future, and he was not rich nor a racer. He’d never even been inside a car before. Now they were trapped, and the blokes were approaching slowly, in no rush now that they were basically packaged up in a tidy little box for them.

There was suddenly noise and motion. The car was shaking.

Tjelvar turned back just in time to see Edward flip two switches, grab a long knob and shove it forward, and then turn the wheel.

The car  _ lunged _ forward.

The thieves threw themselves to the side, barely getting clear before the car had leapt forward, leaning and swaying as it made the turn, and then surged forward again. Tjelvar was no longer watching Eddie, instead was gripping the leather surface in front of him and a convenient handle on the ceiling for dear life. They were to the end of the side street in an instant, slowed to an almost stop, then darted forward again to go onto the street. And then they were accelerating even more, gaining speed at a rate that matched the gaining volume of the car itself. It snarled like an animal. The shaking had turned to such a fast vibration that he could barely feel it anymore.

“I’m glad they got out of the way,” Edward said, sighing with relief and turning his head a bit to smile at Tjelvar.

He could only gape at him.

“Did they get you with anything? Are you alright, Tjelvar?” he asked with deep concern when the orc remained mute.

“I- I- I- no, I’m… fine,” he finally managed. “You… can drive? You can use this thing?”

“What, the car? Oh, yeah. I haven’t drove in a while, but once you get it, you  _ get  _ it, you know? Lucky there was such a nice one right there. Woulda been pretty bad if I’d screwed the clutch right there at the end of the street, huh? I don’t dare slow down till we’re out of the city limits, I don’t know if they can drive and chase us, or if they’d try with a horse or something.” He spoke this all casually, while the car was still absolutely sprinting through the city, the ground seeming to fly by under the wheels. They veered gracefully around a horse and cart, making Tjelvar sway in his seat. Ed palmed the lever and did something with his feet on the floor, pulled it back, and the volume of the car changed again.

“I… you… can drive,” Tjelvar repeated dumbly.

“Well, I am, aren’t I? So… yeah.”

“Have- did you- when did you learn?” Ed’s face twisted up, and Tjelvar recognized his expression. There were large chunks of time that Eddie didn’t much like revisiting, and would rather put behind him. It seemed like this came from a less happy time, but Ed spoke before Tjelvar could backtrack.

“Kind of an odd story, that.” He moved the lever again, and this time Tjelvar noticed he did something with his feet. “So… you know I like men, right?”

The corners of Tjelvar’s mouth twitched, and he reached over to run his fingers down the inside of Ed’s forearm, not daring do much more- they were going so fast, in this shaking little steel box, and he didn’t want to distract him. “I am aware, Eddie.”

“Right. Well… my Da didn’t like that.” Tjelvar was aware of this. Furiously aware. But he didn’t say anything, as that always just stressed Ed out, and it wasn’t productive or helpful. “I mean, it’s not like I’m the oldest son, so it wasn’t like I had to hurry up and find a wife, but it was still… I wasn’t allowed. But I had… Peredur lived a long ways away. And the only way I could visit him and be back without having to stay the night or be missed or lie was to travel faster than a horse. And I can't teleport or nothing fancy, so I thought- what's faster than a horse? One of these,” he said affectionately, giving the knob lever thing a pat. 

Tjelvar beamed at him. Eddie was a simple man, yes, but it would be a falsehood to call him an idiot. His simplicity could be quite brilliant, at times. Such as this. He couldn’t do it riding a horse, he didn’t have access to a teleporter, which only left a car as an option. So he simply learned how to drive. It made perfect sense.

“Which also was great,” he continued, still casually steering them through the city- Tjelvar was trying not to marvel at how he could talk and drive, when it was all he could do to watch things fly by unnaturally fast, “cos Da thought cars were a good thing for a Duke’s son to be doing. So he was happy to see me go off on day trips, when I was really racing through the cities as fast as I could so I could spend time with Peredur. I did actually hafta get good at it, though, so Da wouldn’t notice. He signed me up for some races and I actually won a few, so I guess I did get pretty good after all. 

“And Peredur liked riding around with me. He learned how to drive too, and then we could even hang out in public a bit, so long as we didn’t touch or do anything  _ untoward _ . Cos two men hanging out over cars is acceptable, for some reason. If Da thought I was just going to hang out with Peredur, he got suspicious, but if I said I was going to go driving with Peredur, or racing- he thought that was great. We raced together and went to car shows together. I had this one- a convertible. Cos it converts to an open car, like a jeep, right- the whole top folds back and you can feel the wind on your face. Oh, Tjelvar, you would’ve  _ loved _ it, the wind and the sun, and the engine like a roaring like a big cat.” Tjelvar wasn’t so sure. He wasn’t exactly loving this, he didn’t quite get the concept of what a ‘convertible’ was, and he wasn’t sure why a machine sounding like a ‘big cat’ was a good thing.

“Anyways. That’s why I took driving lessons and bought a few cars, and got good at it. I haven’t drove in a long while. I didn’t realize how much I missed it till now. Peredur and I used to drive all over the country. I went to study the teachings of Apollo pretty soon after that, though. I… we were… he called it ‘parking’, and that’s got two meanings. Parking really just means when you put the car out of gear and lock the brakes down so it doesn’t move, but he said it kind of like-  _ parking- _ and that was… well, the car  _ is _ parked, so technically…” he was going red, and shook his head. “Anyways, someone went past and saw us and told someone, who told someone else, who told someone else, and it got back to Jere- to one of my older brothers. And he told Da. I guess Peredur kept driving after I went away, I saw him listed in the paper once for winning a race. Drives for corvette,” he said with a grin. “I think he’s doing alright.”

By this time, they were hitting the outskirts of town and seemed to be leveling out. The road ahead of them was flat and straight, and without the obstacles of carts, pedestrians, horses, and stalls, and with no sickening turns, Tjelvar was starting to relax a bit. He was able to turn and regard Eddie without feeling like he was going to die any moment, to see how he was directing this machine.

Edward had one hand looseley resting palm-down on the stick knob, and at some point he’d pushed his sleeves up to bare strong forearms and the brown leather sunstone bracelet Tjelvar had got him on the summer solstice.He was relaxed against the seat, with his other hand comfortably holding the wheel at the top, appearing to make small, easy movements that kept the car steady. Now that Tjelvar was paying attention, he could see when he twisted slightly, lifting his right foot to press his left forward, knocking the lever forward, lifting his left and pressing his right back down to the floor. The sun was shining off his armor and his blonde hair, his face was at ease and content and maybe a little nostalgic. 

Tjelvar felt an odd sense of melancholy, a homesick feeling, a longing for summer days and wind and company and young love, laughter and speed and careless dusty driving, things he couldn’t miss because he’d never had it at all. It was all interspersed with a powerful fond love for this man, this paladin who kept surprising him and sweeping him off his feet, no matter how hard he tried to summarize him, to figure out his patterns and what made him tick.

The car no longer felt terrifying and out of control. It felt like power and thrill and luxury. He looked around at the inside.

“The windows move in these things, yes?” he asked.

Eddie glanced at him, looking a little surprised and unsure, and Tjelvar realized he hadn’t said anything when he’d finished his story. Sometimes he just got lost in his own head.

“Uh, down- lever on your right, it cranks. You kinda turn it and crank it around,” he said. Tjelvar seized the knob and pressed and pushed around until he found how it turned, lowering the glass of the window. He turned until the window was all the way down inside the door, and the wind whistled so hard he had to put one hand on his head to avoid losing his hat.

He stuck his face out the window, taking a massive surge of wind. It was a gust that never stopped, it made his eyes water and his mouth dry out and he could barely see. He opened his mouth and it took his breath away.

Half standing, he got his shoulders and the upper half of his torso out the window, holding onto the handle inside and the edge of the windshield with the other, and yelled into the wind. The air snatched his voice away and filled his throat with wind, so he whooped again, and then broke into laughter.

History was his life’s work, but in a sudden novel moment, he thrilled at the future. This car. Edward. The sun. The thieves and what they would do next. The inscribed plates in his satchel and what they would say, once translated. His bed beneath weary worked muscles tonight, with his sunny paladin lying with him.

He dropped back inside the car and laughed some more, face raw from wind. Ed had rolled his own window down and had one elbow and forearm resting on the sill, and was turned and beaming at Tjelvar.

“Do you think we could get a car, Tjelvar? I’ll teach you to drive,” he said.

Tjelvar was wholly incapable of saying no to Eddie when he was smiling at him like that, let alone backed with sunny desert and wind tousled.

“We should. I don’t know that I want to drive, though- I can’t imagine taking the wheel from your hands, you look very happy, driving.”

“I am happy driving,” he said brightly. “But I’m also happy teaching people how to drive. We’ve probably lost those bad guys now, do you think?”

“Probably.”

They kept driving.

“We should turn around eventually. Gotta give the car back. I’ll leave them some gold for the trouble.”

“I’m glad you didn’t hit anything.”

“I wouldn’t! It’s not like bumping carts or anything. When cars hit things, they get all dented in and scratched. If you’re going real fast, you can get swerving and it gets real dangerous.”

They drove a while more, Ed content to keep driving, and Tjelvar drinking in the quietly joyful company. He couldn’t decide if he wanted to stare out the front window at the world rushing by, or at Ed, beautiful and powerful and comfortable behind the wheel. Eventually, he couldn’t resist any longer and gently rested his hand on Ed’s, sliding his fingers over his to fold over the spaces between.

“I actually gotta shift with that hand- here, slide over,” he said. Tjelvar slid across the bench to cozy up to him, hugging his upper arm and resting his head on his shoulder. His muscular frame made a perfect pillow, and he always smelled like beeswax and springtime.

“You’ll have to teach me all this. What is shifting, for example?”

Ed looked excited. “I’m gonna teach you how to drive! Eventually. Maybe not with this car, since it’s borrowed and I don’t want you to stall it hard and damage it, since we don’t know who’s it is. Oh man, this is gonna be fun! I’ll show you how the engine works- you have all these gears, and the size makes bigger or smaller turns related to how fast it spins, so shifting down makes you shift- there’s a chain, it moves, that’s what the shift bit is- and it goes to a smaller gear, so it spins faster, but too much spinning- called, er… I remember this… well, the letters are ‘RPM’s, see that there? That’s telling you- rotations per minute! So the lower gear you’re in, the faster you’ll get high RPM’s, cos…” He continued brightly explaining things about how a car engine worked, and Tjelvar listened, nodding and asking a few questions. He so rarely got to have Ed teach him things, and it was clear that the paladin really enjoyed sharing what he knew.

“Do you wanna see some real driving?” Ed asked shyly, after he’d finished explaining and seemed to notice that Tjelvar hadn’t spoken for a while.

“Is this not real driving?” he said, bemused. Ed laughed.

“Yeah, but… no.”

“I’m not sure what you mean.”

“Alright, hold on, then,” he said, and Tjelvar slid back over to his side, grasping the ceiling handle, unsure what to expect.

Yep. He’d done the right thing.

Ed had let the car slow as he’d spoken, lifting his foot from the ‘gas pedal’. Now he pressed it down steadily, releasing to press the other pedal (the clutch, was it?) and knock the shifter into a different gear. The car leapt forward, snarling, yelling, howling into the desert. Ed easily twirled the wheel with the fingers of his other hand, guiding it off the path and onto the smooth land, and then suddenly-

-twisting to do something odd with his feet-

- _ snapped _ the wheel around-

Tjelvar could  _ feel _ it when the wheels broke traction, about two thirds of the way through the U-turn. Suddenly the back wheels were sliding, jumping out from behind the front wheels, until they were going sideways across the ground. Dust and dirt was pouring into the air like they were on  _ fire, _ and Ed was doing something else with the wheel-

And they were sliding right over to the other side and spinning the other way. Tjelvar was yelling and gripping the handle for dear life, and Ed was whooping and laughing, still only steering and shifting with easy movements and light nudges from his palm.

When they finally drifted to a stop after spinning a full circle, there was a moment of pure silence while the smoking, sandy air boiled around them.

“ _ Edward. _ That was  _ insane _ ,” Tjelvar finally gasped, clutching his chest.

“I’m gonna teach  _ you _ how to do that,” he said confidently. “‘S good fun. That was fishtailing, and drifting, and doing a donut.”

“It was  _ terrifying _ !!”

“That was just a few donuts. An there’s not even anything out here, we weren’t in danger of hitting anyone. The dirt is nice and soft too, no rocks, we weren’t gonna roll over or nothing.”

“Roll…  _ roll _ over?!” Tjelvar had been fearing hitting something or the car shaking itself apart or something- he hadn’t considered they could  _ roll over _ .

“Mmm, those always make my head hurt, an sometimes the elemental gets out if you do it real bad.”

“It- it can do that?”

“Course.” He was putting the car back in gear, and peeked over at Tjelvar, smile drooping a bit. “Would you like me to, uh… no more real driving?”

“I… I feel I’ve had enough ‘real’ driving for today, yes.”

“You’ll be able to do it too eventually. Trust me, you’ll enjoy it then.”

Tjelvar reached over and folded his fingers over Edward’s on the shifter. “I’m enjoying this. Just like this.”

**Author's Note:**

> I just needed an excuse to really fixate on the concept of Tjelvar letting loose, hanging out the window of a fast car, and Edward holding a steering wheel with his sleeves rolled up.


End file.
